Numbered Books
by ElnaKernor
Summary: OSs, crossover PoI and the Prisoner (2009): 1) John visits Sarah - 6 visits 313


_During one of his CIA missions, John had been given a number as he had partially lost his identity. And now that he must let go of "John Reese" under the threat of Samaritan, he visits one last time someone who shares that identity issue. Someone he might not be able to visit anymore._

* * *

 _And here I am, once again squeezing anything Jim Caviezel into John Reese's past whenever I can..._

 _Just so you know, I personally enjoyed the Prisoner ( 2009 ), perhaps because I never saw the first series, and so was able to watch it as its own story. I'm not going to say it's the best thing mankind ever produced, but it's good ( even if I don't "like" the end; then again, I also don't "like" the end of PoI - actually, I like both ends for what they are, but I'm also a sucker for a happy ending... which neither was )._  
 _Yes, I said it: I like The Prisoner (2009), and I don't try to compare it to another story, similar but different from what I've read about it._

* * *

 **Names and Numbers**

This was the last visit he could afford, John knew that.

If he came back again, and again, and again, Samaritan might see the link. Root and the Machine had done a lot to keep everyone covered, to keep them invisible, and perhaps it would be enough to trick the other AI... but he couldn't be sure.

Besides, even if Samaritan could only see "John Riley" right now, and none of John's other identities, Greer or another one of Samaritan's puppets might realize that they had tampered with the AI. They could have the idea to physically stalk the Team's links to society. The people they had known before going into hiding. Sure, it would take some manpower, but what couldn't Samaritan do at this point?

No, starting tomorrow, John wouldn't be able to afford to come and visit.

In fact, he shouldn't even be here today.

But he needed to. He needed to go and see something, someone who had, once, been close to one of his names. Not too close – that would be too much of a risk. But close enough, still.

And, well... With Sarah, at least, John could be certain his name wouldn't get back to Samaritan. It wasn't as if Sarah would ever say his name out loud.

The one name she might, possibly, use, should she even notice he was there, was not one Samaritan could have gotten in any report... And even if the AI had gotten its hands on Summakor's records, "6" was way too vague to search efficiently for.

A nurse noticed him waiting in the lobby, and a flash of recognition crossed her face. Ah. Perhaps his name would be said anyway... They hadn't forgotten him, then.

"Mr Conor! We were worried you wouldn't come back!"

John didn't like the sound of it, but only looked at the nurse with a question in his eyes. If she didn't mean that someone had come and asked, implied things about him, then it wouldn't do to get her suspicious by acting like a paranoid man.

She simply smiled at him, and lead the way to Sarah's room in the mental hospital.

"Oh, last time we noticed that you had been hurt not long before. I've seen more than one patient walking with a bullet wound in their tight, you know? But you assured everyone that it was fine, nothing much, just a random bullet you had the displeasure to meet... An attitude that got me more worried than reassured, I tell you. Then we didn't see you for five months, and at your office they said they had no idea where you were, that you weren't the CEO anymore, though you now owned the company... But since the bills for Sarah were still being paid..."

John listened without answering the unasked questions in there – not that he'd have known when to, in between the incessant flow of words coming out of the nurse's mouth. He hadn't expected the staff at the hospital to actually remember him, let alone worry about him.

He really should make this his last visit.

Michael Conor was burned anyway, had been since he had... left... the CIA. The identity had been crafted by the Agency, after all, and it hadn't been prudent to use it for anything official. The only times he had used the name in the last years were whenever he came to see Sarah.

And, from time to time, when he received a phone call from the new CEO of Summakor.

He'd have to refuse those calls, now that Samaritan had access to everything.

The nurse stopped at Sarah's door, and opened the door for him with a smile.

"Well, Mr Conor... I hope you'll enjoy your visit."

John could see that the nurse wasn't believing her own words, though she wanted to. He smiled back at her, and entered the room.

It wasn't the woman's fault if a visit to Sarah couldn't ever be fully enjoyed.

John's eyes fell on the woman listening to music with her eyes closed, in a corner of the room. A comfortable armchair... The mental hospital was top notch, he had made sure of that when he had arranged for Sarah's – and a few others' – future before leaving Summakor. She – they – needed it.

Deserved it.

He heard the nurse closing the door behind them, and saw Sarah's eyes opening as if in response.

A look of distress first took over her features, as she noticed the stranger in her room, so John took a step towards her, stepped into the light. Sarah – 313 – recognized him, and calmed down immediately.

A small smile played on her lips.

"6."

He smiled, and went to sit in the second armchair, next to hers. Their fingers seeked the other's.

"313."

John didn't like using the numbers – funny, now that he thought about it, how he had had numbered people in his life even before working for the Machine. They were impersonal, and reminded him of too many difficult times. Of the Village, of his identity being stolen from him – not the first time, mind you, but never before it had been replaced by a mere number.

But putting an end to the Village, getting everyone out had been done at a price.

Choosing whether the inhabitants of the Village wanted to be remembered by their real selves, or if they'd rather be forgotten entirely. For the real selves, asking them to choose just the same. Making the bridge between the conscious and the subconscious definitive, or erasing it.

For the few Villagers who had been in Sarah's mental situation – sleeping beauty issue put aside – there had been only one choice possible. Merging the two states of consciousness, so that their mental disability would be erased under their better life.

Sarah was in a better state than she had been before the Village, true, but she had issues discerning her memories of the Village and the real world. She still responded better to 313 than to Sarah as a consequence. Better, but not perfect.

So for now, they would be 6 and 313.

Not that Sarah knew his real name anyway. To everyone concerned in Summakor, he was Michael Conor, new owner of the company, after Curtis made a deal with the CIA to keep the Village under wrap, instead of ending up in jail for what he had done.

John still had a hard time thinking he was legally the owner of a transnational company in advanced sciences – not that he actually had access to said company, but still...

"How are you doing, 313?"

The woman smiled weakly at 6 – her benefactor, and, in another life, in another reality, the man she loved. The man for whom she had taken the role of the dreamer for one month, before...

"I'm... still not at ease with the outside world, but I'm navigating the hospital perfectly now. The nurses are kind, and with 534 and 23-92, we manage to keep each other sane, I think. I know the Village wasn't a good place, but..."

313 understood that the other people who had been pushed into the Village without a choice had suffered from 2's actions, from his wife's dreams. The holes, the policing, the mental formatting... She had experienced it herself, and had 6 not been here to open her eyes, she would have blindly followed 2, even as she'd have been aware, deep down, that something was wrong – but what?

It hadn't been obvious, but the evil in the Village had been present.

Still, it had allowed 313 to have a real life.

It had given her the opportunity to meet 6 and fall in love.

"...you miss it, occasionally."

313 could see into 6's eyes as he finished her sentence, and it wasn't pity that she saw here. There was something, yes, something deep, and raw, and hurting, bleeding, but it wasn't pity. 313 didn't know why 6 would hurt so much about the Village – yes, she was aware of everything he had suffered there, but it wasn't that either – but it was obvious he didn't like it.

Perhaps the secret laid in the reason he had fought against 2's ruling so much.

"Yes, I miss the Village. But you don't, right, 6?"

"Oh no, I certainly don't, 313."

Curtis hadn't known who he was truly hiring, when he had taken Michael Conor in his team of analysts. The old man hadn't realized, until too late, that Michael Conor was truly a CIA operative sent to see what the private technology firm had been doing that warranted their attention – the Machine's doing, John could guess now, perhaps one of the earliest numbers.

The ISA hadn't existed, back then, and there hadn't been anyone better suited to send to Summakor – or so Mark had said, but John doubted that a bit. The CIA had mostly used him as an executioner, and he certainly wasn't an analyst. Then again, he wasn't certain an actual analyst, CIA or not, would have lasted in his situation, so perhaps it had been for the better.

Did he not know any better, John'd say the Machine had set him up, even back in 2009, to test him. To see if he'd do as one of her primary assets.

But that wasn't possible, right?

He squezzed Sarah's hand a bit, as if to reassure himself that she was really here. Whenever he came to see her, he needed some time afterwards to reassure himself he wasn't lost in some... simulation of 2's. It wasn't hard – but it was necessary.

After 2's death, and Curtis' withdrawal from Summakor, leaving him CEO of the company, John had needed two whole weeks of being only Michael Conor, to realize that he wasn't Michael Conor. The whole experience had played with his head a bit too much, and only a phone call from Mark, asking him why he hadn't checked in the day before, had gotten him back in tracks.

And that, that was before he decided to... fuse back, let's say, with 6 completely. The bridge that the Village had built between his subconscious and his consciousness was still a bit shaky, at the time.

Mark's voice over the phone had gotten him back in the game, and one week later, the CIA had the Curtis couple in custody, and solutions were examinated to end the Village project. In the end, Curtis had handed over the company to "Michael Conor", or, unofficially, to the CIA, and the couple had disappeared under a new name. As for John, he had refused to completely erase 6, and had taken him back instead. After all, what was yet another identity, another life to deal with, for a man like him?

Still, when he had gotten back to Mark and Kara, John had asked immediately for a run-off-the-mill assignment – like, say, an assassination – to get himself grounded again.

To assure himself that he was John Reese, and not Michael Conor or 6.

John hadn't ever felt the need to ask something like that with any of his other identities before.

He stayed with Sarah for about half an hour, discussing various, untrue things about his life, and saddening, repetitive things about hers. Then he deemed it more cautious to leave, just in case someone had noticed something in Samaritan's little group of problematic psychos.

Sarah must have seen something of his worry in his behavior, because before he left, she asked him a question she had never asked before – but it made sense, really; after all, she had seen 6 in his worst moments of paranoia. She knew him in a way no one else did.

Even if she didn't know him at all.

"6..."

Sarah bit her lip for a moment, but it didn't last.

"What's your real name?"

John stared at her, at first unsure of what he should answer... should he answer at all.

Sarah was asking for his real name, but she was speaking to 6, to Michael Conor. Should he say Michael, then? Or should he present himself as John Reese? Not that the name he had gotten from his parents was John Reese either... And there was the issue of Samaritan, who was certainly listening through a few dozen devices in the mental hospital. If John was hidden under his Riley identity, the AI would still hear him and, if anything, figure out that "John Riley" knew somehing about "John Reese". Then again, his first name alone was so common there was no danger giving it away...

The truth was, John was as much "Reese" as "Riley", and with the months he had passed as Michael Conor, he could very well say he was him too. They were not his birth identities, but in many ways they were just as real.

"You can call me Michael, Sarah."

6 smiled at 313 as he said that, and 313 – Sarah decided she liked that name.

But she had a feeling she wouldn't see Michael again – his eyes told her so, and Michael's eyes never lied, even if sometimes, they kept secrets. Michael wouldn't come to see her again, because he was hiding from someone – someone like 2, someone you couldn't hide from.

Sarah whispered, as Michael closed the door behind him.

"Stay safe, Michael."


End file.
